1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device to elevate the working surface of a person standing in front of a regular desk, said device being placed on that desk, so that the user can work in a standing position.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The present invention is the product of an analysis and effort to make the largest share of the population stand up in front of their desk.
The dangerous national trend of obesity has been related, to a great extent, to the sedentary position of a great percentage of the work force. Today 75% of the workforce works in a sedentary position which has been connected with obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, kidney stones among other ailments. People who stand up and walk around burn more calories and are less likely to put on weight that those sitting down at their desk, all day long. Many efforts have been made to have people who work at a desk to stand up in front of their desk as they can lose an estimated 50 calories per hour more than when sitting down.
Corporations receive rebates from health insurance companies that provide insurance to their employees when steps are taken by management to offer health improvement programs which would improve the health of their employees and therefore reduce health maintenance expenses and costs to the insurance companies. Were standing desks widely provided and utilized in a company, the company is certain to benefit from such rebates.
To introduce a device for standing at one's desk successfully in an organization's location and ensuring that it would be adopted by a maximum of employees, a unit of the device should be provided to each stationary employee so that all the units together make a visual impact on their colleagues, employees being led to use the device under the peer pressure that would naturally ensue, especially in an open space workplace configuration. However, the device should also be at a very low cost for the HR department of the company to justify a company-wide distribution of units. Furthermore the device should be as little intrusive as possible. Employees would be able to set it up and use it if convinced that they can take it down and put it out of the way very easily when desired. Indeed they will reflect—especially during the learning period—that at times they would prefer to take down the device and sit down at their regular desk and rest. Therefore the device should be as light as possible and as foldable as possible, without losing effectiveness, providing a really adequate work surface and being genuinely stable.
Existing solutions for standing up desks and devices already exist which can be divided into four classes. The first class are devices which makes for whole desks to be raised. Those are bulky and very expensive devices. Secondly, standing desks also exist which are standing on the floor and, with cantilever mechanisms, raise the working surfaces from the ground to a level higher than regular desks. Such devices are now widely used in hospital and medical centers. Their working surfaces are usually quite small; their stability is a concern; their price is high and they are quite bulky if required to be set aside next to a regular desk when users feel the need to sit down at their regular desks. The third category are extended arms fixed on a regular desk that extend a small working area above the desk, and often require an extension platform for a mouse. Stability and price are still an issue there also. The fourth class are devices to be sitting on a regular desk, like the device under the invention, including a subclass designed as “lap desks” designed usually to work while sitting on a couch or sitting up on a bed. Their work space is also limited; either their footprint is too small to afford good stability for a acceptable working area or they are still too heavy with complex lifting mechanisms which makes them not conveniently portable nor foldable. They are also more costly to manufacture than the device under the invention. The device according to the invention can also be placed in an attaché case or a shoulder bag so that the user can have access to it even when changing desks and thus does not lose the habit of working standing up when away from his regular desk.